Obstacle # 17

                                        

                                              
Juli and I were starting to feel the end of the course coming up and passed by many people struggling to keep going at this point, legs seizing and Mike was handing out TUMS to any and all like the wizard of Oz bestowing gifts to Dorothy and friends. My own water bottle had been handed off to someone that needed it more than I did and I found myself at Obstacle # 17 Hold Your Wood : carry a heavy log through a ¼ mile section of the Tough Mudder course. The area is hilly, get friendly with your wood because you’ll be hauling it up a steep and challenging ascent. By now I was feeling a little bewildered that there were only two more left after this. Juli tried but ended up skipping this obstacle, but I didn’t know that until after I had grabbed my own log, thrown it over my shoulder and went for it. The climb up was hard because the grass was dry, feeling more like hay than grass, and kept giving out under our feet as we went up. I paused when I needed to but never really stopped like the others did, and NEVER sat down. On the way down, the slipping was even more scary because these weren’t little branches we were hauling, it would HURT and break bones if one of these suckers went flying. I was sarcastic once again and started to loudly quote part of Full Metal Jacket, changing the words only a little, “This is my log, there are many others like it but this one is mine!” But I was too tired to remember the rest of it to keep going. It worked to make people laugh though, which helped get rid of the doom and gloom air that was hanging over everyone. We all knew what was coming next, there were only two obstacles left after this and neither one was going to be a walk in the park or petting cute fluffy animals. 
                              
Mike had seen me to the log carry and was impressed with my endurance and strength because at this point and time, a lot of people were choosing to skip actually carrying the log and just walking the hill climb. I had apparently made it look easy, and like I was just getting warmed up. Not sure how that happened as I was definitely tired and my feet REALLY didn’t love me at this point in time. My toe shoes were great, but all that uphill meant I was on my toes an awful lot, which meant that my big toe knuckle in my foot was damn sore by now; perfect time for a downhill to help stretch out the quads, hamstrings and feet. I had seen many others take their shoes off completely, trying to get more traction or needing relief from the blisters and chafing as wet shoes and no socks combined to ruin their feet.